DAISY JONES AND THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

---

Title : Daisy Jones & The Six
Author : Taylor Jenkins Reid
Format : eBook (overdrive)
Page Count : 336
Genre : historical fiction
Publisher : Doubleday Canada
Release Date : March 5, 2019

Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ ★ ★

---

Hollis’ 4 star review

I’m going to come right out and say it : I think my love for this book might be a wee bit biased. Because if you try and convince me this is anything other than Fleetwood Mac fanfiction, I will laaaaaaugh in your face.

Little (hah) known fact about me? I love Fleetwood Mac. Stevie Nicks is my patronus. So, ask me if I loved DAISY JONES AND THE SIX? The answer is duh.

I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fucking story.

I loved the complexity, the contradictory, and the chaos that is this kind of storytelling. The interview process, the different perspectives, the shift of memory, maybe even the falsehoods, it was fascinating. It felt real and authentic. I could so easily picture this as a Behind The Music segment on MTV — or whatever channel it would be these days. Hell, I’ve probably watched all of the ones to do with the Mac, so, yeah. The picture is vivid. As for hearing, I definitely want to reread this on audio at some point. I want to feel these voices in my soul. It’ll either be an even better experience or, expecting Stevie and getting something else, I’ll be disappointed. Fifty/fifty, really.

That’s how it was back then. I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea. Well, fuck that. That’s why I started writing my own stuff.

But anyway. If you know anything about the Mac, you’ll understand what this is about. If you don’t, it’s the start of a band, of a singer, and their collision and meteoric rise to fame in the seventies. It’s about drugs, sex, longing, hate, jealousy, music, family.. it’s everything. 

I came to hate that I’d put my heart and my pain into my music because it meant that I couldn’t ever leave it behind. [..] It made for a great show. But it was my life.

Honestly, the only thing I didn’t like? The ending. You’d think I would, wouldn’t you? But no. 

Would definitely recommend this for Mac fans and non-Mac fans alike (sidenote, if you can watch the 1997 The Dance version of Silver Springs and not lose your cool.. I mean, wow, kudos, but how). Again, I’m probably biased. But at least I’m honest about it.

Now, excuse me while I load up a youtube playlist full of all my favourite live versions, kthanxbai.